Poetry Intro

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 4

Poetry

What is poetry

• Popular definition: a song without a melody
  
• Two essentials: form and content

Different forms of Poetry

• Haiku
• Free Verse
• Sonnet
• Acrostic
• Limerick
• Ballad 

Tools for analysing poetry

• Form:
  Metre and scansion
  Rhyme scheme
  Stanza division
• Content:
  Situation
  Theme
  Symbolism
  Metaphors
  Imagery

Rhyme Scheme

Using the letters of the alphabet to show the rhyme scheme. 

For example: AABB CCDD. 

What is the rhyme scheme of the poem? 

Autumn -Joan Mitchell

The rusty leaves crunch and crackle,

Blue haze hangs from the dimmed sky,

The fields are matted with sun-tanned stalks —

Wind rushes by.

The last red berries hang from the thorn-tree,

The last red leaves fall to the ground.

Bleakness, through the trees and bushes,

Comes without sound.

Stanza Division

• A stanza is a group of lines followed by a space.
  
• Are the stanzas related to one another? 

Streemin

Im in the botom streme

Which meens Im not brigth

Don't like reedin

Cant hardly ryt

But all these divishns

Arnt reely fair

Look at the cemetery

No streemin there

Roger McGough

Situation

• A poem always describes a situation: what is going on?
  
• Ask the ‘wh-questions’!
  
• Once a reader knows the situation, he tries to discover the deeper meaning.
  
• You need to read between the lines. 

Theme

• Like short stories, poems have themes.
  
• It is important to find evidence for the theme.
  
• This evidence must come from the poem itself.
  

Turn/Volta (twist)

Sometimes the poet gives his poem a twist, where the first stanza is about the shining sun and the second stanza is about the darkness. We call this a turn or a volta. Not all poem have this twist. 

Dusk - Rae Armentrout

Spider on the cold expanse

of glass, three stories high

rests intently

and so purely alone.

I’m not like that!

Symbolism

• Poems can have a symbolic meaning: a deeper, bigger, universal meaning. 

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans,

  and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

Metaphors

• A metaphor is a different name for something, often in nice poetic language.
  Example: the golden eye => the sun
  Example: eternal sleep => death
• Poets may use the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ in a metaphor, to compare.
  Example: He was so pale, he looked like a dead man.

Simile -Comparison using like or as

Both are Similes

3. Simile      4. Metaphor

Imagery

imagery makes use of particular words that create visual representation of ideas in our minds. The word “imagery” is associated with mental pictures. However, this idea is but partially correct.

Personification

• A figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes.

• For example, when we say, “The sky weeps” we are giving the sky the ability to cry, which is a human quality. Thus, we can say that the sky has been personified in the given sentence.
  

Irony

verbal irony

• when someone says something totally different from what they mean

situational irony

• when a the result of a situation is totally different from what you expect it to be.

dramatic irony

• audience knows something important that the character doesn't know
• makes you scream 'don't go in there!' at a horror movie

What is the irony here?

What is the irony here?

What is the Irony here?